


when will the nightmares end

by sebviathan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, PTSD, depressing dependency, minimal dialogue, most of it is in between first avenger and winter soldier, vaguely religious mentions, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 03:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They may all see themselves as ex-vets and warriors who are haunted by the ghosts of their past, but none are in the same boat. There are no men like him simply because there are no men like Bucky, who is the center of the one nightmare that hits him every night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when will the nightmares end

It's safe to say that hundred of nightmares follow Steve from 1945. Many of those who work at S.H.E.I.L.D. and especially the other Avengers tell him that they have similar experiences, that this is PTSD and it's not uncommon for men like him.

"Hey, even I get nightmares," Tony tells him in possibly the most empathetic tone Steve has ever heard him use. "A lot, actually. Don't be ashamed of it. And don't tell anyone we had this conversation, either." A soft pat on the back and he's gone, tinkering with one of his suits and arguing with JARVIS.

Steve gets a lot of pats on the back. For some reason everyone thinks it'll be comforting, like it'll fix him for good—and he doesn't know why he's thinking this way about it because it isn't as though it was a new concept. It isn't much different from 1945 in that respect.

He supposes he's angry that they all think that they understand.

He's angry that Natasha thinks explaining her nightmares in detail will somehow make him feel better about his own, and he's angry that Thor keeps offering him Asgardian remedies, and he's even angry that Clint shows no sign of pity despite that being exactly what he wants. Want _ed_. He doesn't really know anymore.

The only one who doesn't make him secretly angry is Bruce because he's the only one who can actually tell that he  _is_  angry.

"Cap—hey. I just, ah—I don't know if you want any advice right now, but I think you should go to the gym. Take a few rounds at a punching bag, and just keep hitting it and hitting it until everything's out. It's... what I do. Sometimes."

For once there is no hand on Steve's shoulder, and the advice is actually useful. It's practical. And for that, he's grateful.

Bruce's arms are still tucked together across his chest when Steve smiles and gives him a brief hug. "I'll do that. Thank you."

It's safe to say as well, Steve figures eventually, that everyone else here suffers from just as many, if not more, nightmares than he does. But he's also always figured that quality takes precedence over quantity—content over count. They may all see themselves as ex-vets and warriors who are haunted by the ghosts of their past, but none are in the same boat. There are no men like him simply because there are no men like Bucky, who is the center of the one nightmare that hits him every night.

It's all white, blinding him for a moment, and then he's scrambling and there's metal slipping through his fingers and then there's  _Bucky_  slipping through his fingers, and the very last thing is a flash of metal that breaks off when his friend falls. Or Steve tells himself that that's the last thing because he tries so hard not to remember the split second that Bucky's expression told him he knew he was going to die, or the moment after that when thoughts were flashing behind Bucky's eyes as fast as you can flip a deck of cards, the rest of his face working as quickly as they could to make use of his last chance to say goodbye. He tries hard not to remember that they had never been able to give each other proper goodbyes beforehand.

And most of all Steve doesn't want to remember his own name lost on the wind and the depth that Bucky fell because if he thinks about it then he can't remember exactly when it stopped, when Bucky's voice died off entirely. As far as he knows when he's in that state, perhaps it just never stopped. Maybe the fall was endless and Bucky is still going through the air and yelling for Steve, or he's at least yelling for him from  _somewhere_  because Steve can still hear it. Not even just in the back of his head, but as though it's actually out there and beyond his ears.

Sometimes, when he can bring himself to bear the thoughts, he imagines that Bucky went to Heaven and he's never stopped screaming for him even though all the other souls up there tell him to  _quiet down, Steve can't hear you. Be patient, for God's sake._  But of course even in death Bucky is most certainly as stubborn and unwilling to respect authority as ever, and he's probably pausing just to lean back and tell them,  _Of course he can, don't you know a thing about love?_  And then, maybe,  _Besides, he needs to hear me so he can know I'm not gone._

Someday, he imagines, Steve will follow Bucky up there and tell him to quit his shouting and make him apologize to all the poor souls for annoying them for over a century.

Steve still wakes up and immediately lurches over to reach out for a hand that isn't there, to grab hold of Bucky and haul him up and save him. He always thinks that  _maybe this time I can save him_  and subsequently notices that he's grasping at nothing but sheets.

Bucky fell with his arm stretched out to Steve, trying to reach him for every moment until he hit the ground. It's that mental image along with Bucky's eyes, his goddamn  _eyes_  that make him feel so guilty for everything. And then, of course, it occurs to him that if Bucky hadn't died then, he would have just left him in 1945 the same way he did Peggy anyway.

Then again, it quietly occurs to him moments later, if Bucky hadn't died then, Steve might not have made the decision to sacrifice himself in the first place. There's no doubt in his mind that the sacrifice was partially due to the fact that he felt like half a man and that this was the best he could do with no Bucky.

_Till the end of the line._  The line had ended for Bucky, so Steve had needed to end his too.

Moving on now is still near impossible, but not nearly as difficult as seconds after it happened. Steve still doesn't know what gave him the conviction to hold on after Bucky fell, he really doesn't. He doesn't understand how his physical strength had remained intact after something like that, or how he hadn't simply dissolved, or how the sheer heartbreak hadn't broken his fingers as well and thrown him off.

If he could turn back time, he thinks he would opt for simply letting go and for them both falling together. They might have been able to hold hands, at least.

But he didn't do that. He held on, probably tighter than he had been, and the only reason Steve can figure is that somehow he'd been able to entertain the rational thought that he couldn't let his best friend die in vain.

He remembers clinging to the plane and dropping his guard entirely just to curl in on himself and  _cry_. That part follows him too, even into the conscious world. Bucky disappears from his world in the longest moment of his life, he wakes up, and he cries. Not every morning, but a fair handful of them. He's never quite sure whether he just hasn't gotten over it at  _all_  or if the tears are inevitable because he's doomed to repeat this nightmare.

When Steve first woke up seventy years later, his very first thought was that he was waking up to start over, before Bucky's death and before the war altogether. His second thought was that he had finally died and that this was Heaven. Those both took place within such a swift moment that he barely had a chance to be disappointed that neither were true. Occasionally he's still tortured by the cruelest nightmare of all—that everything since the serum had been a horrible dream and now everything's okay.

A common non-nightmarish dream he has is one where he and Bucky are both 18 but living in modern day as opposed to the early 40s, where it doesn't matter if anyone sees them kiss. It may not be a nightmare but he's still sweating when he wakes up and trying not to cry over the potential that was lost.

Of course, nothing compares to  _the_  nightmare. Steve doesn't tell anyone about it, and he refuses to talk about Bucky whenever asked. It's no one else's business, what they did or how close they were.

Are.

_Were, Rogers. He's dead._

There isn't a doubt in his mind that Bucky died when he fell, not even when he thinks he sees him in his peripheral vision or across the street. Steve does not feel like Bucky is still here—there is a definite loss, frayed ends coming off of him to show where the seam that held him and his best friend together was ripped.

All he has of him now is his love and devotion (and old pictures, and the Smithsonian exhibit, and Bucky's files, but none of those things are quite as substantial), which he supposes won't ever go away. Steve never expects to have anything more until the most disengaging second of his life years later—

"Bucky?" he asks breathlessly, and every nightmare he's ever had is blown back. This isn't possible.

But regardless, his entire world is promptly flipped right side-up again.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

He doesn't remember. They're not close, but only as far as the Winter Soldier remembers. The thing is that Steve knows Bucky better than anyone and almost immediately understands what's happening.

It's something that can be fixed. It's a bit broken but not impossible. It's the man Steve has always loved. It's a  _miracle_.

Bucky never died.

_He never died._

Steve is going to find him (again and again) and help him, and the nightmare is surely going to stop.


End file.
